First post from Jimeta

This is an accumulation of posts. I am using the Cell Phone internet by MTN it is very slow. It has taken over 15 minutes to get to this point. Now to see how long it takes to upload the post. It is 4:01 in the morning. The call to prayer woke me so I deciede to try this when the internet use is low. It really does not seem to matter.

53 Pounds

My bag was not full but had a lot of paper and ended weighing 53 pounds. International flights are allowed 50 pounds. Now my carry-on is a bit heavier and the bag is down to 49.5 pounds. I had an eight hour flight with a duet of crying toddlers as couple rows away. The man next to me was an urban planner from Perth, Australia. He currently works in Saskatoon, Canada. He moved to Canada in February. From the heat of the Australian summer to the middle of the Canadian winter. The free WiFi at Minneapolis and Amsterdam does not connect to the internet. But you can pay 3 euro for 15 minutes. I will save this and wait. There is a 7 hour difference here in Amsterdam. Nigeria is due south about 6 hours by jet. They are 6 hours ahead of Minneapolis time.

Park Place Hotel (N9.06566 E12.44847)

I arrived in Abuja about 7:30 PM Thursday evening. It is dark out. Pastor Benjamin the District Pastor for the Abuja District picked me up and drove me to the Park Place Hotel. Air conditioned and hot water. Two things I will see little of for a while. Had a nice breakfast of “oats” and toast. Oats is what instant oat meal is called. I will see a lot of that during the next two months. Pastor Benjamin picked me up and rather than going to a money exchanger he had money he needed to exchange for a doctor who was flying to America. So we did the black market money exchange in the hotel room. The official exchange rate is 149 naira to the dollar. The street rate is 172. We did 170. Last year it was at 117 on the street and 115 at the banks.
Do you know what the IRS does with our taxes? It runs an airline in Nigeria. I flew IRS Airlines from Abuja to Adamawa for a little over $106 and another $7 for overweight luggage. In country they only allow 20 kilograms (44 pounds). The flight was comfortable in Fokker F100 jet.

Thunderstorm and National Youth Conference.

Arrived in Yola at 3:00 PM on Friday to overcast skies. The LCCN Projects Manager Mr. Yakubu Bulama picked me up at the airport in his Toyota van. As usual he is Peugeot is at the mechanics. We inspected two places at the LCCN Jimeta compound and decided that it the accommodations at the Projects Office (N09.27996 E12.44847) would be the best. It is where I will be working for the next two months. Elisabeth lives here when she is in town. I have her dishes, generator and hot water kettle. There is a Propane stove and electric refrigerator that works when the generator is on or the National Electric Power Agency (NEPA) is on. I put a couple of bottles of water in the freezer to make ice for keeping things cold while we have no power. The power did come on at about 1 AM until about 6 AM. The LCCN compound is adjacent to the Jimeta Cathedral. The Lutheran Youth are having their national conference here through Sunday. So it is much busier and louder than normal. The evening meeting went until well past midnight. The music was loud and mostly fast African beats. A few slower European hymns tossed in. The main speaker reminded me of the traveling evangelist that held tent sermons in the Alabama when I was a kid. It was in Hausa so I did not understand any of it but it was loud and delivered with enthusiasm. Not your Minnesota Lutheran sermon. The thunderstorm started about 1:00AM. That cooled things down. Mr Bulama told me it is normal to get a little early rain then it stop for another month before the real rains come. It is amazing how much grass popped up on Saturday.

LCCN Academy for the Deaf

The lady that was cleaning the house I looked at prior to deciding it was too big and empty for one person to live in, is the head of a school for the deaf. She also runs a church service hear for the deaf. They have a tent for now but hope to build a building. Deaf children are brought here to learn the basics and then the ones that can afford it go on the state run boarding schools for primary and secondary school. Those that cannot afford the cost of boarding school are taught trades like jewelry making and sell their work in the market. I might be looking closer at this group in my spare time. They use American Sign Language. The Women’s Fellowship runs widows and orphans program that makes soap as a way for widows and orphans to earn a living.

Fuel Lines

Fuel cost $1.47 a gallon (65N per liter) at the National Petroleum stations. The waiting lines are several kilometers long. There are street vendors with 5 gallon containers who will sell it to you for a lot more. That is where we will get fuel for the generator. It is now almost too dark to type inside. I will have to quit and start the generator to recharge to batteries and cook some soup.

Saturday

Saturday was mostly a day of rest and organizing my accommodations. We drove to the market and several other places to get some essentials. I think my food will be a work in progress. I got instant oatmeal, Kellogg’s Fruit N Fiber cereal, a case of orange juice, case of water, tea and various instant soups. I found that I brought my charger for my electric razor but have not located by razor. So I bought some disposable. I forgot a towel so bought compressed cotton towel. They say it will expand out to a full sized towel when I get it wet. I will take a picture of this process. It is now approaching 6:00 and the light is starting to fade. I got to test the internet on MTN cellular. It definitely works but is very slow. Much slower than dial up or than the satellite system I used last year in Numan. I will probably be using the new satellite system at the Yola Dioceses to send my emails. Netzero has so much advertising content on its homepage that I will probably not check that email very often. I will use the jaycia@mchsi.com email mostly.

Bali Committee

We made contact. Pastor Boniface Shenmi the Vicar at Jimeta Cathedral and one of the Church elders Williams Nzomeh stopped by to talk. Progress is being made at arranging a trip to Bali early next week. We will have one or two members of the committee and the Missions Director Rev. Jamal Timusa, Mr. Bulama, myself and ten bicycles that the Yola Diocese has donated. Later a lady that was the former treasurer of the committee stopped in with a gallon of honey from Bali. She had just returned. The Women’s Fellowship has a companion church in Bali that they work with. Unfortunately, there is no Pastor and not much lay leadership.

That is it for now in four hours I will attend services at the Jimeta Cathedral.